Heretical translation against the distinction of LATRIA and DULIA

1 IN this restraining of the Scripture to the sense of some one Doctor, there is a famous example in the epistle to the Hebrews,¹ where the Apostle says either Jacob adored the top of Joseph’s scepter, as many read and expound: or else, that he adored toward the top of his scepter, as other read and interpret: and beside these there is no other interpretation of this place in all antiquity, but in S. Augustine only, as Beza confesses:² yet are they so bold to make his exposition only, and his commentary peculiar to him alone, the text of the Scripture in their translation, saying, Jacob leaning on the end of his staff, worshipped God, and so excluding all other senses & expositions of all the other fathers, excluding and condemning their own former translations,³ adding two words more than are in the Greek text, leaning, God: forcing αὐτοῦ to signify αὑτοῦ, which may be, but is as rare, as virgae eius, for virgae suae: [his rod, for his own rod] turning the other words clean out of their order and place and form of construction which they must needs have correspondent and answerable to the Hebrew text from whence they were translated:⁴ which Hebrew words themselves translate in this order, He worshipped toward the beds head. If he worshipped toward the beds head, according to the Hebrew: then did he worship toward the top of his scepter, according to the Greek: the difference of both being only in these words, scepter, and, bed (because the Hebrew is ambiguous to both) and not in the order or construction of the sentence.

2 To make it more plain, when the Prophet David says, Adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum Psal. 5. & 137. is not the true translation,⁵ and grammatical sequel of the words thus: I will adore toward thy holy temple? Is it not a common phrase in the Scripture, that the people of God adored toward Jerusalem,⁶ toward his holy mount, before the ark, toward the place where his feet stood? May any man be so bold, by adding and transposing to alter and obscure all such places of holy Scripture, that there may appear no manner of adoration toward or before a creature? And for worshipping or adoring toward the things aforesaid and the like, may we say, leaning upon those things to worship or adore God? Were they afraid lest those speeches of holy Scripture might warrant and confirm the Catholic & Christian manner of adoring our Saviour Christ toward the holy Rood, at, or before his image and the Crucifix before the altar, and so forth? For had they not feared this, why should they translate ἐπί, leaning upon, rather than, towards, yea, why in Genesis, towards his beds head, & here not, towards?

3 And (which is more) when the ancient Greek fathers, Chrys. Oecum. in Collectan. Damesc. li. 1. pro imaginibus, Leont. Apud Damasc. put so little force either in this preposition ἐπί (or the other alleged) that they expound all those speeches as if the prepositions were of phrase only and not of signification,⁷ saying, Jacob adored Joseph’s scepter, ⁸ the people of Israel adored the temple, the Ark, the holy mount, the place where his feet stood, and the like, whereby S. Damascene proves the adoration of creatures named Dulia, [the veneration given to creatures] ⁹ namely of the cross and of sacred images: if I say they make so little force of the prepositions, that they infer not only adoration towards the thing, but adoration of the thing: how do these goodly translators, of all other words so strain and rack the little particle ἐπί to signify, leaning upon, that it shall in no wise signify anything tending towards adoration?

4 And if the Greek Doctors suffice not to satisfy these great Grecians herein, tell me you that have skill in the Hebrew, whether in the foresaid speeches cited out of the Psalms, there be any force in the Hebrew prepositions?¹⁰ surely no more than if we should say in English without prepositions, Adore ye his holy hill: we will adore the place where his feet stood: ¹¹ Adore ye his footstool: For you know that there is the same preposition also when it is said, Adore ye our Lord: or as yourselves translate, worship the Lord: where there can be no force nor signification of the preposition.¹² And therefore in these places also your translation is corrupt and wilful, when you say thus: We will fall down before his footstool. Fall ye down before his footstool, before his holy mount, or worship him upon his holy hill: Where you shun and avoid first the term of adoration, which the Hebrew and Greek duly express by terms correspondent in both languages,¹³ throughout the Bible, and are applied for the most part to signify adoring of creatures. Secondly you avoid the Greek phrase, which is at the least, to adore towards these holy things and places: & much more the Hebrew phrase, which is, to adore the very things rehearsed: to adore God’s footstool (as the Psalm says) because it is holy, ¹⁴ or, because he is holy, whose footstool it is, as the Greek reads.

5 This being most manifest to all that have skill in these tongues, it is evident that you regard neither Hebrew nor Greek, but only your heresy: & that in S. Paul’s place aforesaid of adoring Joseph’s scepter, you alter it by your own fancy, and not by S. Augustine’s authority, whom I am sure you will not admit reading in the Psalm, Adore ye his footstool: and so precisely and religiously reading thus, that he examines the case, and finds thereby that the B. Sacrament must be adored, and that no good Christian does take it, before he adore it. Neither will you admit him when he reads thus of David,¹⁵ He was carried in his own hands, & interprets it mystically of Christ, that he was carried in his own hands, when he gave his body and blood to his disciples. Yet are S. Augustine’s interpretations (howsoever you like or mislike them) very good, as also that above named of Jacobs leaning upon his staff, and adoring, may be one good sense or commentary of that place, but yet a commentary, and one Doctor’s opinion, not the sacred text of Scripture, as you would make it by so translating.

6 And if S. Jerome like not the Greek Doctors interpretation in this place of adoring Joseph and his scepter, yet he also says that Jacob adored toward Joseph’s rod, or toward the beds head, and not leaning upon his staff he adored, which you make the text of Scripture. And though he think that in this place is not meant any adoration of Joseph, yet I am sure, for adoration of holy things, namely Relics, the holy land, and all the holy places and monuments of Christ’s being & doing upon the earth, you will not be tried by S. Jerome. And again, why S. Paul should say, that by faith he adored, & in respect of things to come, it is not otherwise easy to understand, but that he partly foresaw the kingdom of Ephraim, in the posterity of Joseph: partly the kingdom of Christ prefigured in Joseph then Prince of Egypt, & so by faith adored his scepter or toward his scepter (which is all one) as the Greek fathers for the most part expound it. But let us hasten toward an end.